Despite it being a box office success, the Vertigo Comics-based film, starring Keanu Reeves and Shia LeBeouf, received a mixed consensus from critics and moviegoers.

“Aquaman” is slated for a July 2018 release and is starring Jason Momoa, Amber Heard and Willem Dafoe. Jason Mamoa will also appear in “Justice League,” which is out Nov. 2017:

Fueled by his restored faith in humanity and inspired by Superman’s selfless act, Bruce Wayne enlists the help of his newfound ally, Diana Prince, to face an even greater enemy. Together, Batman and Wonder Woman work quickly to find and recruit a team of metahumans to stand against this newly awakened threat. But despite the formation of this unprecedented league of heroes—Batman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Cyborg and The Flash—it may already be too late to save the planet from an assault of catastrophic proportions.

Currently studying Journalism. I love film, cars, cats and video games. I'm a novice intern for Heroic Hollywood. Also a novice streamer for Twitch.

Matches Malone

Honestly the main reason that film didn’t resonate with fans was because Keanu didn’t look and “sound” like his comicbook counterpart. I thought the story was stellar and really liked some of the mythology they added to it myself.

Darthmanwe

Plus, the truly angelic and properly androgen Tilda as Gabriel. Not to mention a very engaging Lucifer performance.

SAMURAI36

According to who? Most people didn’t know who Constantine even was at that time, in order to make the comparison.

Matches Malone

Love your constant assumptions put forth as empirical fact. The character had a decent sized fanbase at the time -> evidenced by the fact they made a Hellblazer film?

I distinctly remember fan lamentation on measage boards and in film mags regarding Keanu’s casting.

SAMURAI36

Hmm, then I’ll submit some empirical facts for you. The Hellblazer book lasted almost 300 issues, and at the time the movie came out (2005), the book had only sold roughly 15K copies.

Granted, the book had a long run, but it averaged about 15K copies sold per month, for the length of its run. Bear in mind, >20K is the cancellation mark for most titles. That’s not remotely a “decent sized fan base”.

The book ran the risk of cancellation several times, but then that “decent sized fan base”, as you call it, rallied, and DC kept the book going for as long as it could.

The truth of the matter is, WB took a chance on Constantine with the movie. It was a virtually unknown property, which is why it didn’t do all that well in the theaters. For that matter, as much of a DC fan as I am, and have been for decades, I hadn’t even heard of Constantine until the film came out (and I LOVED the movie, and fell in love with the character thereafter, BTW).

It wasn’t till the New 52 that DC made the character a priority. It was at that time that they switched him (and other characters) from Vertigo to the DC mainstream. Shortly after, they gave him his own TV show. That’s when his popularity shot thru the roof.

They relaunched his book under the “Constantine” name (instead of HellBlazer) in 2013, which only did barely better than the original HellBlazer book under the Vertigo banner.

And I won’t even go into the “success” of the TV show.

But as I said, I LOVE Constantine. Can’t wait to see him show up again on TV, as well as the JLD cartoon, and even the live action movie for the DCEU.

I actually dug this movie. There was one awkward transition scene in it early on (won’t spoil for those that haven’t see in), but otherwise it was a solid script I thought, and well acted. I didn’t mind Shia LeBeouf (who has turned in some good performances over the years–not so much here). For me he did no real harm, anyway. I don’t know the comic book character, so I enjoyed the film for what it was. Best I can see, his Constantine was pretty much the same character that he used in John Wick. Different skills but very similar vibe.

batghost

I’ve only read a few Hellblazer trades and while I do like the John Constantine character better in the comics, I’ve always really liked this movie. Keanu is awesome and everyone else is wrong.